Spending time in nature's classroom

LAGUNA MOUNTAIN RECREATION AREA TRAILS

Trail heads: From Interstate 8, take county Route S1 to the village of Mount Laguna, about 11 miles. Park in the visitor center lot, where the Kwaaymii Trail begins. Desert View Nature Trail is about a mile south on S1. Enter the campground and park in the Nature Trail lot.

Difficulty: Easy

Rules: Dogs on leashes allowed

Before you go: There are descriptions and maps of the trails at the Web sites of the Laguna Mountain Volunteer Association, lmva.org, and the Cleveland National Forest,
www.fs.fed.us/
r5/cleveland. Neither site offers the trail guides for downloading, so you'll have to hope the boxes at the beginning of each trail are stocked. The Visitors Information Center at Mount Laguna also has them, but the office is open Friday afternoons and weekends only. You will need to post an Adventure Pass on your dashboard to park on national forest land. Passes cost $5 for a day or $30 for a year and are sold at many outdoor recreation equipment stores and the general store in Mount Laguna.

The Desert View Nature trail in the Laguna Mountain Recreation Area is a loop covering about 1.3 miles.

PRISCILLA LISTER

Two trails in the Laguna Mountain Recreation Area offer an excellent self-guided lesson in the flora and the history of native people.

They are just about a mile apart, and both have printed trail guides corresponding to numbered posts on the trails, providing details about the trees, plants and lifestyles of the people who used to migrate seasonally between the mountains and the desert.

You can easily hike both trails in less than two hours.

The first is the Kwaaymii Trail, which is a half-mile loop. The other is the Desert View Nature Trail, a loop covering about 1.3 miles. Both are in the Mount Laguna village area.

The Kwaaymii Trail begins next to the Mount Laguna Visitors Center. The Kwaaymii (pronounced kwhy-me) were a subtribe of the Kumeyaay (ku-mey-ie) American Indians. The Kwaaymii migrated from the desert to the mountains each spring. Several hundred people lived in three villages near Laguna Meadow, according to the trail guide. They would grow crops and hunt game before returning to the desert for winter.

There are 10 markers on this trail that share information about how the native people lived. Marker No. 1 references the wooden cabins that dot the area today and says the Kwaaymii built their homes from pine and juniper branches with doors made from deer hide or woven reeds.

Deer grass, marker No. 2, was a favorite for making baskets. Acorns, marker No. 3, gathered from black oak trees were stored in huge baskets for the journey back to the desert.

The branches of wild lilac, No. 4, were used as throwing sticks to kill rabbits, whose meat was stewed with acorn flour and whose hides were used for clothing and blankets.

The Desert View Nature Trail, just about a mile back on Sunrise Highway in the Burnt Rancheria Campground, has 19 markers corresponding to its guide. This path meanders through oak and pine forests, joins the Pacific Crest Trail for about a mile and rewards hikers with a fantastic view of that desert.